Officials of the joint United Nations programme on human security say they are impressed with the output of the programmes to ensure peace and unity in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region.

The field coordinator for the programme, Ernest Asigri stated the security programme has had positive impact on the lives of the individuals and hoped the programme will continue.

Mr. Ernest said individuals or communities who hitherto could not sit together are now eating from ‘‘one bowl’’.

‘‘The most important thing we have seen is the ability for the programme to bring people together for them to discuss about developmental issues that affect them, [their] children and their wives and that is the core of human security,” he stated.

The programme which has a life span of five years is been implemented by six UN agencies namely, World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Industrial Organization (UNIDO), Food and Agriculture organization (FAO), United Nations Children Education Fund(UNICEF) and United Nations University(UNU).

‘‘In the absence of peace, in the absence of development and in the absence human rights there is no human security,’’ Mr Asigri stated.

He said the interventions are yielding the desired results and the people now understand the importance of peace.

He said the case of the Wa municipality is not an isolated one, adding Tamale, Yendi and Bawku Municipality over the last two years have not experienced any serious violent conflict.The UN field coordinator hinted of plans to establish a groundnut extraction machine at Sokpayiri in the Wa Municipality.

He said an existing borehole in the community has been mechanized an at a cost of over twenty five thousand Ghana cedis yo take care of the water needs of the people.

Mr. Asigri said the whole idea of mechanizing the borehole is to reduce the number of hours spent by women and children in looking for water.

A visit to the site of the borehole revealed lots of excitement on the faces of the women as they told Joy News the programme should be extended.

‘‘We use to have lots of misunderstanding between us here as to who will fetch before the other and it often leads to a fight which transcends beyond us to our husbands and all households, but now with the mechanized borehole, we have no such programme again. We are able to sit down together and talk about issues that affect us and our children, thanks to this UN programme,’’ a community member, Yahya sahadatu remarked.

The project also has an agriculture support component where several livestock farmers in the four conflict prone areas in the municipality are given sheep after a couple of years the same number of sheep given will be transferred to a different owner.